


Snowy river dance

by Archibald_Hale



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e07 Dear Sigmund, Hawkeye being moody, Multi, Sid is queer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 15:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19212730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archibald_Hale/pseuds/Archibald_Hale
Summary: Injured medic. Freezing Korean winter. Everyone is tired, everyone’s hurting and everyone needs to go a little crazy. Not yet sure where this is going, but it definitely is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fix that I’ve published so I’m a smidge nervous. Anyway, I dearly love the M*A*S*H-verse but my one quibble is with Ugly John. Worst Australian representation ever. So! This is the tale of an injured Australian medic, the 4077th M*A*S*H unit and the strange dynamics of love and war. And please, please let me know in the reviews what you think.
> 
> See you in the end-notes. (Ooh, and please let me know if I’m formatting wrong. This is gonna be a journey)

It was cold, that night; an early February sort of cold, where the wind whistled through the camp and twirled in wicked dance with the rubbish and dust of the compound. It was too cold outside for anyone except a mangy dog from the village, come to sniff around for the better-quality garbage. The wind whistled and the shutters shrieked and the tin roof of the operating theatre groaned and tried to wrest itself loose from its grounding.

It was midnight, and most were asleep. Somewhere, two voices murmured together in the warm light of a small tent. A nurse made her tired rounds of the few patients in the post-operative ward, and the dog yapped at a particularly intrepid fox who sniffed around the campsite.

In the clerk’s office, the clerk slept, clutching a ragged teddy bear and dreaming dreams too innocent for this cold, muddy midnight.

In the priest’s quarters, the priest slept, glasses slipping down his face and Bible spread open on his chest where it had slipped as he drifted into blissfully empty dreams.

In the surgeon’s tent, the surgeons slept; one dreamt of fearful things, one dreamt of golden things, and one inhabited the strange dreamscape that came to him every night that he could never explain and never quite remember.

In the commanding officer’s quarters slept the commanding officer, and the nurses slept in their bunks and the head nurse slept in her cosy, rosy tent and the enlisted men slept in their enlisted-men’s dorm and the resident drunk slept slumped at the bar.

And far away on the front – although not quite as far away as one might have wished – there was a hiss and a  _ whoomph _ , which normally wouldn’t have meant much, for it was, after all, a war zone, but tonight meant everything to the medic pacing along the dull road to nowhere, who heard a hiss and a  _ whoomph _ and then felt only pain, pain and then blessed, blessed darkness.

—

“Hawkeye? Hawkeye, wake up.”

“What are you doing, Radar?” Captain Hawkeye Pierce groaned, rolled over and covered his head with a pillow.

“Come on, Hawkeye, I’m serious. There’s an injured medic in pre-op, got brought in just now from the first aid post.”

Another noncommittal groan. “Well get somebody  _ else _ , Radar, I’m  _ tired _ .” Still, he was rolling out of bed and pulling his red robe off his chair and around his shoulders. Seeing BJ stir in his sleep, Radar lowered his voice and bundled the captain out the door.

“Sorry, sir, I really am. But the guy got hit pretty bad, blood everywhere, Nurse Schneider says it’s a belly wound.”

Hawkeye hmm’d in response, wincing as the midnight wind hit. “Geez, it’s cold out here! Radar, what did I do to deserve this?”

“Nothing, sir, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t apologise; I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at this whole crummy war. Macarthur, Uncle Sam, GI Joe himself. Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He shouldered his way in through the swinging door to the scrubs room, shivering as he threw on surgical whites and scrubbed up to his elbows in freezing, stinging soap.

Lieutenant Maria Schneider, a competent nurse, was waiting for him at the door to the operation room. “Good to see you, captain.”

“No, no, the pleasure’s mine. What’ve you got on this guy?”

“His name is Lieutenant Harrison Lee, and he’s been at the front – a medic, from what we know. His buddies brought him in. They said he’d caught a belly-full of shrapnel after an unexploded mine went off; they think it must have been the cold that set it off. Sometimes the cold makes the ground contract like that.” The whole time she was talking, she was fussing around, tying his mask and snapping on gloves for the both of them and very conspicuously not entering the operating theatre. Finally, Hawkeye laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Schneider, relax. What’s going on?”

She blinked at him, then dropped her gaze. “Oh. Well. He’s a little… difficult? Won’t take the anaesthetic. And it’s just, it’s just late and I just got a call from home and I just can’t cope with this right now, doctor.”

“Right.” Hawkeye turned her around and pointed to the door. “Nurse Schneider, would you fetch Major Houlihan? You need to get some rest.” She protested a little, but eventually left, smiling a sort of watery smile. Hawkeye entered the OR.

The kid was lying down, crossing both arms over his chest and shaking his head while the poor anaesthetist – Hawkeye couldn’t remember her name at this time of night – tried to fit the mask over his mouth. The medic’s bloodstained uniform jacket had been evidently wrested off, but that was as far as they’d gotten.

_ For Pete’s sake _ , Hawkeye thought.  _ There’s no end to the chaos _ . “Whoa there, cowboy. What brings you to this part of town?” The kid wrapped his arms around his chest and tried to curl himself into the foetal position.

The nurse met his eye and looked back down. “He’s not lucid, Captain. Won’t talk.”

The kid groaned and Hawkeye cast around for… something. If he tried to hold the kid down, he might tear that wound worse, and besides, he didn’t really think he could manage to pin down anyone at this time of night – or ever, really – let alone a semi-lucid thrashing lunatic medic from the front.  _ Oy vey _ . The OR doors swung open and Houlihan strode in, followed by BJ.

“Hey Hawk. Need a hand?”

For a quick second, all Hawkeye could think was  _ thank you Father for the whole damn 4077 _ _ th _ before he squinted his eyes (so BJ could tell he was smiling behind his mask) and gestured an elbow at the kid. “Think you could help him calm down?”

Beej nodded and crossed toward the medic quickly. “Hey there. Lieutenant…”

“Lee,” the anaesthetist provided, and BJ nodded his thanks.

“Hey there, Lee. Easy now. We’re trying to help you, kid.” Gently, the surgeon unwrapped the medic’s hands from their fists and laid them on the gurney top. “Just lie still, okay? Easy there.”

For a moment, Lee stilled, and BJ nodded at the anaesthetist. “Put him under, nurse.”

For the first time, the kid’s eyes opened, and Hawkeye saw that they were the same warm, muddy brown as Trapper’s, as Harry’s, as Miller’s and Jones’ and all the poor kids with brown eyes that passed through this lousy neck of the war.

“Please,” he whispered as the mask was lowered over his face. “Please, you don’t understand…” He made one last attempt to reach up and pull off his mask, but the ether kicked in, and his hands fell to his side.

—

“Looks like he’s already been wounded…” Major Houlihan frowned as she cut away the medic’s uniform. “Look; he’s got another bandage wrapped around his chest though it’s hard to see through all the blood.”

“Damn blood,” agreed Hawkeye, trying to sound more chipper than he felt. “There’s too much bloody blood in this war. I move for the abolition of blood. Anyone second the motion?”

BJ half-heartedly raised a hand, and the anaesthetist – Lucas, Hawkeye remembered at last – looked up at him and smiled a little. “Okay, Margaret, we’re gonna have to cut away the old bandage too, at least to see what we’re dealing with, although it looks like…” he peered into the wound, “he caught most of whatever it was in his belly.”

Margaret nodded, manoeuvring her operating scissors under the older, blood-soaked bandage. When she finally peeled it away, it took a minute for what Hawkeye expected to see – a blood-stained chest, too scrawny by half, most likely – with what he actually saw.  _ Of for the love of Mike _ .

—

There was light. Light and… shapes.  _ Ouch _ . Light hurt. Light faded again into black, and then came back, brighter and more insistent. Oh. Sounds. Far away – closer now. Was someone… no, nobody was coming. Safe. For now. Except for this damn painful light that wouldn’t go away...

—


	2. Two Hares (in which our Protagonist learns of his whereabouts, confuses two doctors and engages in conversation with a Catholic).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Duly named, thanks to PrairieDawn's encouragement. This is a pretty hefty chapter, so settle in for a bit of a ride. Chapter title is explained at the end.

“Lee?”

With effort, Lee forced open his eyes. There was that wretched light again, though it wasn’t as bad as it’d seemed at first. Two men sat by his bed; both of them tallish and skinny. Like inverted versions of each other, one was blonde and smiling, the other dark-haired and frowning. Doctors, it looked like. Because… _Oh_.

“Am I in hospital?”

A broad grin stretched across the blonde one’s face. “Sure are, kid. You gave us a fright there!”

“Oh.” He tried smiling; it took effort to remember which muscles to use. “Sorry. I’m fine now.”

“Well, maybe not fine, but you’re out of the woods. Are you up for a chat?” He pulled a chair over and plonked himself down. “I’m Dr Hunnicutt, and smiley here is Dr Pierce. Don’t mind him, he hasn’t slept since last year.”

The dark-haired Doctor Pierce shoved Hunnicutt with a smirk. “I have a great smile! I just need caffeine to remember where to paste it on in the morning.”

Hunnicutt rolled his eyes and Lee found himself grinning again. Only now did he have the chance to notice his surroundings: the roof was tin above him, and he was tucked up in a cot down the far end of the room, near a pair of swinging doors. No-one else was here. And here was… A M*A*S*H unit, probably, given the American accents and red crosses stamped on various army paraphernalia. Thank goodness the ward was empty – that meant the fighting up at the front mustn’t be too bad. The boys would be safe; the boys with the guns and his mates with the stretchers. “Thanks for fixing me up, sirs.”

This time, the dark-haired Pierce spoke up, something like a smile touching the corners of his mouth. “Well, you know, we would’ve felt bad if we left you to bleed all over our nice clean floors.”

“What happened?” Lee couldn’t really feel anything at the moment; even moving his tongue and lips to talk felt slightly disjointed. And memories and the creeping sense of having forgotten something were beginning to fray the edges of his nice, clean morphine haze.

“We think a mine must’ve gone off. One of your buddies – Dale? – said the cold sometimes sets them off. He found you with a belly full of metal and tree.”

Lee winced.

-

For a moment, Hawkeye lost his nerve. He couldn’t do this; couldn’t watch that sweet kid’s face crumble or, even worse, be filled with fear. Anxiety clenched in his gut, and he turned to BJ, wishing there was something easy in this whole damn stinking war.

-

Hawkeye had that look in his eyes – the one that said _please help_ clearer than Morse Code. BJ sighed and spoke, trying to use the same soft voice he’d used to calm the kid in surgery. “Lee. We’ve operated on you. It’s not a secret anymore.”

- 

They’d operated on him… Oh. _Shit_. That’s what he’d forgotten. When he spoke, Lee was surprised to hear how calm his voice sounded. “How many people know?”

Pierce and Hunnicutt exchanged glances. Again, it was Hunnicutt who spoke. “Counting me and Hawk? Four. There were two nurses present. We haven’t told anyone else. Look.” The captain leaned back in his chair and rolled his shoulders. “How about you tell me and Dr Pierce why you were up at the front in a medic’s uniform, and we’ll… We’ll look out for you, kid, but you gotta be honest with us. Okay?”

Lee reached down and tugged his scratchy army-issue blanket higher, feeling oddly like a child again. Crikey, it’d been a long time since he’d been a child… Panic and fear mixed and made his voice come out belligerent. “I’m a medic. It’s my uniform.”

“Is that _it_?” When Lee refused to say anything else, Pierce shook his head and groaned. “Can you at least tell us your name?”

“Lieutenant Harrison Lee. I’m a medic at the Aid Station, born in Cooma Hospital in the Snowy Mountains. Thirteenth of June, 1929.”

Pierce crossed his arms. “There’s some pretty strange people on this planet, but no-one I know would call their daughter _Harrison_.”

Lee, if possible, went a little paler. “I’m not anyone’s daughter.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake. Biology would suggest otherwise.”

For a moment, there was only silence and in the silence, Harrison felt something he hadn’t felt for a while. Not since he’d taken Clyde’s conscription notice anyway. The feeling, he realised, was shame. He, Harrison M. Lee, was a freak and a pervert who had brought disrepute on his family and would continue to do so until he was court-martialled and shot. Shame was thick in his belly, anxiety heavy in his chest, fear fast-flowing in his veins. Not knowing what else to do, he pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and rolled over to face the wall.

At the other end of the room, the clock ticked. Outside, the wind whistled around while people hid in their tents and tried to forget the war. It was Hawkeye who broke the silence – Hawkeye who pushed himself to his feet and ran a hand through his hair. “Dammit. _Dammit_. I’m going to go get Potter. We’re sending you home, Lee.”

“Hawk, wait—“ BJ stood and caught up with him. “That’s a dishonourable discharge for h… her at best, a court-martial at worst.”

“I don’t care, Beej. We can’t just let him, _her_ …” From his limited vantage point facing the wall, Harrison could see an awful lot of arm-waving and longed, suddenly, for home’s clear skies, cold nights and bright stars.

“Just think it through, is all I’m saying.” That was the blonde one talking. “You don’t want to go rushing into things without considering all the consequences.”

“To hell with consequences! There’s a twenty-two year old girl in my post-op, all full up with my best embroidery because of this crummy war playing crummy tricks on desperate people. She’s going home.”

In the midst of Hunnicutt’s next sentence – something to do with Pierce’s playing God – the wooden door swung open, and a diminutive, clean-shaven man entered, doffing his white panama hat with an apologetic smile.

“Hawkeye, BJ. Is there something wrong? Only, I heard the shouting from across the compound…” There was an edge of admonishment to his question, and Pierce ducked his head.

“Sorry, Father.”

But the priest was no longer paying attention to him. Instead, he’d spotted Lee, curled into as much of a ball as his IV would let him. “Good grief! Is everything alright with this young man?”

The two doctors hesitated, and BJ shrugged. “It’s a little complicated, Father. We’ve got it under control.”

“Hmm. Perhaps what he needs is a touch of spiritual guidance. Or at least someone to talk to him instead of shouting at one another.”

Hawkeye swiped his hair out of his eyes, looking for all the world like a chastised child. “You’re right. Please; you talk to him. We’ve probably given the kid a traumatic disorder on top of… everything else.”

The doctors retreated and the man took Pierce’s chair. “Hello there. I’m Father Mulcahy, the priest in this outfit. How are you, my son?”

Lee took a deep breath and realised he was crying. _Bother_ _._ He tried to scrub them away but only ended up scratching his face with the rough wool. “Not great, Father. How’re you?”

“Oh dear. I’m well – Lee, is it? Is there anything you need to talk about?”

He wiped his face again, embarrassed, and remembered Clyde telling him to man up. What’d started out as a childish taunt turned into a mantra for them. _Man up, sister: you’ll be right_. “I’m not sure you’ll want to hear, Father.”

The diminutive priest laughed softly. “You’d be surprised, my son. Doctor Pierce and Doctor Hunnicutt are some of the best men I know, and I hope you’ll forgive them for being a little abrupt. We’ve been terribly short of supplies lately, and everyone is a little on edge. But anyway. My job is to listen, not to judge, and if you’ll forgive me for saying it, you look like you could use someone to listen to you.”

Lee rolled over and offered Mulcahy a watery smile. “You know, you remind me of my Uncle Jim.”

Mulcahy laughed again. “I think I’d better take that as a compliment. Where’s your family from, if I might ask?”

“Kosciusko. The most beautiful place in the world.”

“Is that near Sydney? One of my cousins lives there; I don’t suppose you know a Louise Waters?”

It was Lee’s turn to laugh. “Afraid not, Father. The Snowy Mountains are a bit of a way outside Sydney, and a lot smaller. We have a mid-sized run of sheep up there.”

Leaning forward, Mulcahy said, “Tell me about it,” and Lee, for once, did as he was told.

“My father died before I can remember, so my brother Clyde and I learned to run the farm pretty quickly. Like I said, we ran sheep and took on snow leases from some of the big farmers down in the flats. Anyway, a few years ago, Mum… got really sick. Since then, Clyde and I’ve been running the farm and looking after Mum. But money’s pretty tight, and even though the wool was fetching alright prices, there’s lots of people who wouldn’t buy stock or wool from two kids. It didn’t really matter that Clyde’s nineteen and I’m twenty-three in a month. They still saw us as kids… We needed more money somehow. Mum’s medicine was costing a lot, and we couldn’t afford it, but we couldn’t _not_ afford it. Then the war – beg pardon, police action – came.” Here, Lee stopped and gave a wan smile. “I’m sure you’re not very interested in Australian politics but… The government reinstated conscription this year and my little brother was called up. But Clyde… He’s so bloody gentle – the war would kill him, or make him not Clyde anymore. But it was sign up or get pegged for draft evasion. They only wanted a hundred and seventy-six days of training. And the pay was good.”

Here, Lee trailed off, and the Father smiled encouragingly. “It sounds like you had a hard time of it.”

“Oh, no, Father. I… Look, it was a good life. Mum and Clyde are just amazing and I’ve always been loved, always had choices…”

This time, when the boy trailed off, Mulcahy took the opportunity to look at him properly. He was too skinny, as all the boys who passed through here were, but his skinny looked more like the result of years of hard work – the wiry muscles in his shoulders and forearms spoke to that. Deeply tanned, with dark curly hair and big chocolate eyes, if he stayed long, he’d probably spell ruin for the limited remaining virtue of the 4077th’s nurses. And yet despite his evident strength, the boy held himself like a bird, wary and alert. There was definitely something spooking him, and Mulcahy was willing to bet it wasn’t Hawkeye and BJ – or at least, not only them. Hoping he wouldn’t frighten Lee more, he mildly inquired “Might I ask why the doctors seemed so upset?”

_Bingo_. Lee closed his eyes briefly and then, after a few seconds, evidently decided he could trust the priest.

“The thing is, Father… Well. They… thought I looked like a girl.”

Well, that wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Mulcahy raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me, my son, but I’m not following. You don’t look like a girl to me.”

Lee pushed a flop of hair out of his eyes and rubbed his ear, as if for luck. “Um. Biologically. I… do. Look like a girl. But,” he spoke quickly over Mulcahy’s intake of breath, “Father, I was born looking like a girl but not feeling like a girl. On the inside. Inside, I’m a man. I joined the army in Clyde’s place. Clyde says… Look, Clyde’s mad that I left, but he says Mum’s getting better every day, and he understands what I mean, why I cut my hair and wore the bandage and, I mean, Father, please don’t be angry and please, _please_ don’t send me home like some sort of misbehaving child, because I’ve thought this through and even though you might think I’m disgusting and perverted, I know who I am and I’m helping people. I’m saving _lives_ , Father.” A note of wonderment crept into his voice. “Sheep are all well and good, but I never realised I could save someone’s life.”

There were a thousand things he could’ve said, a thousand things he could’ve done. Yet before he’d made his mind up, Mulcahy found himself reaching toward Lee and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, my poor child. Son. You’re not perverted. You’re a child of God, and He loves you right here, right now.” As the boy reached up and grasped his hand, tears in his eyes, Mulcahy found himself adding, “And if I have anything to do with it, nobody is sending you home. Nobody.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I really hope you enjoyed that: Father Mulcahy is one of my favourite characters, particularly because he's such a sterling Christian role model and is secretly a bit of a rebel. Anyway, the 'two hares' of the chapter title come from the Ode of Mulan, a fifth/sixth Century Chinese poem about Hua Mulan. In case you haven't seen the Disney version, in the poem, her father is conscripted, but because he's old and sick, Mulan rides into battle in his stead and ends up saving all of China (in an unspecified fashion).
> 
> The rough translation of the final line is "Two hares running side by side -- how can they tell if I am he or she?"


	3. Padre: in which Father Mulcahy and Captains B.F Pierce and B.J Hunnicutt pay the colonel a visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to anyone still reading! Final year of school is ridiculous and I've been a little stressed lately, but I do have another chapter for your perusal and pleasure. Hope you enjoy Mulcahy trying to get his own way for once.

“A transfer? What brought this on, Padre? If there’s folks giving you a hard time, we can sort it out.”

Seated at his desk, Colonel Potter leant forward, arms crossed, trying to figure out the man in front of him. Francis John Patrick Mulcahy: quite sort of fella with a heart big enough for all the orphans in the world and an unexpected streak of iron that manifested itself in boxing gloves and the occasional sly aside. He’d been through a lot—more than he let on, almost certainly—but there hadn’t been anything recently... 

Mulcahy’s open face expressed surprise. “Oh, no, Colonel, not for me. Apologies for the misunderstanding. No, I was,” he twisted his hands together in his lap, “I was wondering if we could arrange a transfer for one of the wounded men, from his outfit to ours. He’s a medic, and, well, yes. I thought he might— _ we _ might—benefit from his... reassignment?”

An enigma in drab green and a clerical collar, this man was. Potter shook his head. “We’re always in sore need of another medic, Padre, but so’s everyone. What’s so particular about this one?”

Mulcahy’s gaze flicked to the other two men in the room, silent until now, and Potter stifled a groan. If this hare-brained cockamamy involved those two jokers, there was definitely something going on beyond an ordinary transfer request. As if he’d seen the look in his colonel’s eye, Pierce unfolded himself from his slumped position in his chair. 

“Father’s right, Colonel. We’ve lost two corpsmen in the last month to mortar shelling and in that ambulance accident. We’re short on staff and some fresh blood might boost morale.”

“My morale is just fine, thank you,” Potter returned. “Boys, I don’t even know who we’re talking about, and I might be getting toward senile, but I’m not seeing much sense here.”

Again, that infernal shared glance, like they were all trying to coordinate on what to say. It was Hunnicutt who pitched in this time. Oh goodie: Potter was in the mood for a proper yarn. Uncrossing his legs, BJ leant forward, matching Potter’s posture. “Lieutenant Harrison Lee, Battalion Aid. The kid’s in post-op at the moment; we could’ve filled a bed-pan with the amount of metal Hawk took out of h...him.”

“Not to mention the tree,” Pierce piped in. 

“Not to mention the tree. The point is, the kid was in pretty bad shape, physically and mentally, and it’s our medical opinion that  _ he _ ’d be safer a bit back behind the front line. Hawk was right, too; the 4077th could more than use another medic.”

If there was one thing Colonel Potter had learned in his time here, it was that Pierce and Hunnicutt always got their way. It might take days, it might take months, but eventually--perhaps when he’d thought they’d finally forgotten about it--they’d strike. And the truth of it was, for some damn reason, he trusted them. With a quick prayer tossed heavenward, he pushed away from the desk and leant back. “Okay.” 

The look on the men’s faces was worth a fortune. Pierce took the bait first; of course he did. 

“That’s it?”

Potter spread his hands wide, mimicking a generous benefactor. “That’s it. You’ve convinced me with your sterling case. I’ll just request the transfer form, shall I?”

“Colonel… If I might ask, what’s the catch?”

The padre lifted his gaze to Potter’s, and, not unexpectedly, Sherman T. Potter thought  _ Damn this war _ . The second big one had been a rotten business, but it had to be done. But Korea? He’d gone in with ideas of protecting his country and his missus from the threat in the Pacific, but he’d seen too much since then to be able to justify that. Now looking into the wary eyes of one of the best men he knew, he wished that right and wrong were as easy in real life as they seemed on paper. 

With a sigh, he pulled open a desk drawer and withdrew a few sheets of paper. “I’ll need to get a proper psychological evaluation to even convince Battalion Aid to let him go. Now,” he held up a hand as Pierce made to interrupt, “I still don’t know what’s behind this sudden attack of due military process, but for some reason, I trust you boys, and I hope you can come to trust me with this too. I’ll ring Syd, see if he’s free to come up for a few days.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Mulcahy ducked his head and Pierce and Hunnicutt chimed in their thanks as well.

“I’ve got a whole pile of requisition forms to get through, so if you’ll excuse me, you’re dismissed.” Watching them file out, Potter shook his head again, wondering what it’d be like to actually know what was happening in his unit. “Klinger!”

His loyal Lebanese company clerk popped his head around the door. “Yes, my exalted Colonel-ness?”

“Fetch me some more requisition forms, would you? I’m starting to have nightmares about Spam on toast, and Houlihan tells me we’re short of pretty much everything except time.”

“As you command, oh great and benevolent Colonel.”

Rolling his eyes, Potter glanced over at Mildred, who gave him a reassuring smile. “Oh, and Klinger?”

“Sir?”

Potter tugged on his earlobes. “Nice earrings.”

“Thank you, sir. Three dollars from Mr Luck if you’re looking for something special for Mrs. Colonel…”

“Requisition forms.”

“Yes, Colonel sir.”

\--

 

What was it about this kid? Scrawny and too young by half, but nothing different from the hundred other boys who came through here in a choked, jerky river of names and faces and injuries. Colonel Potter watched Lee sleep, his young face open and relaxed in unconsciousness. Another enigma; because this outfit didn’t have enough of them already. With a sigh, he straightened the boy’s blanket and checked his drip. Everything was in order, of course. 

Well, maybe Syd would unravel this little mystery. Right at this moment, Colonel Potter was too damn tired. 

 


End file.
